Peer pressure postgrad office

Hello Folks,

Welcome to our Peer Pressure Postgrad Office

I moved to the new office this week. It's crowded but incredibly influencing my wriitn. Becuase there are four people in the room, everybody tries to keep the voice down and focus on their work. It's good to have a little pressure from your colleagues. I always like this environment that people are serious about what they are doing. This is what we call postgrad life! There we go...

Enjoy writing - make it fast coz I'm dying to go home.

How to make the most at a seminar

Dear Lecturers and Postgraduate Students

As I went to present my paper “Teacher cognition and technology-mediated EFL instruction in Thai tertiary contexts” at The Regional Language Centre (RELC) Singapore during 20-22 April, I would like to share some perspectives that might be useful for using technology in language teaching.

Since the topic of this seminar was “The Impact of Technology on Language Learning and Teaching: What, How and Why.”, it implied that language teachers and educators have paid more attention to the integration of technology in language teaching and literacy. I met many non-native English teachers from many countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, the Philippines and Singapore. I talked to them about how technology had impacted on English instruction in the South East Asian region. We all agreed that as non-native English teachers, technology has a potential to enhance language instruction because it brings about multimedia information and authentic language input to classrooms. From my observation, teachers who attended the seminar were interested in using new technologies in their classroom teaching. There were many workshops and presentations that sounded very promising for language teaching.

However, I know that after the seminar many teachers would forget what they had listened and learned from the seminar. Why? - because many of them would find what they received at the seminar was not at all applicable in their teaching reality. Therefore, I would like to make some recommendations about how to make the most out of attending a seminar related to the use of technology in language classrooms.

These are some suggestions:

1. Before attending a workshop or a presentation, think about what facilities do you have already had in the classroom. For example, an interactive whiteboard program may sound promising for a collaborative classroom. Unfortunately, it was clear that your school would not be able to afford the tool in the next few years. Then it’s better to forget about it. Look for something that you have already had in your classroom like desktop programs such as a word processor or PowerPoint presentation. These working programs might be more useful for you in reality. It is always useful to learn more about the applications that you have already known how to use them rather than learning a new thing.

2. When checking list of the paper being presented, I found that there was a very few topics that focused on teachers’ understanding about technology. More than half of the presentation topics were about how to use applications such as interactive whiteboard, classroom management systems, multimedia online tools, and collaborative online tools. From my point of views, there should be more topics about empirical studies of how teachers understand about the potential of technology in their contexts or how exemplary teachers adopted technology in real-life classrooms. Attending this type of presentation would help you understand more about how teachers adjust themselves in technology-mediated teaching which may help establishing your own understanding when integrating technology in language instruction.

3. While attending a presentation or a workshop, ask yourself questions like:
- “Would this tool work in my classroom- or would my students be able to use it?
- “If I were the user of the tool, what would I do to appropriate the tool into my teaching context?
- “What would be the difference when I bring this tool in my language classrooms? - “Do my students really need to use this tool in their language learning?”
- “Do everyone has access to the technology?”

Asking this guiding questions will be useful for accommodate the knowledge about
your classroom contexts with the features of new technologies. It is therefore recommended that the most effective way to use technology is to empower what you have already achieved in normal classroom. In addition, it is necessary for teachers to maintain their teaching goals which will be regarded as the benchmark for the use of technology that supposed to be supportive to those instructional goals.

Finally, I hope that my reflections and experiences from this seminar would be useful for your teaching and learning with technology. Attending seminars improves your professional expertises because we have more opportunities to share with people of the same interests.


"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."
: MARGARET FULLER

Thank you.
Tessie

Tessie's RELC Presentation

Teacher cognition and technology-mediated EFL instruction in Thai tertiary contexts.

Teacher cognition and technology-mediated language instruction in the Thai context

View more presentations from tessie_th.

Research Overview
What I’m going to present today is a part of my PhD research in progress. The main question of my research is to investigate how Thai tertiary English teachers think about using technology in teaching English.
This research is based on my personal interest. I like to learn about using technology or innovations in my classroom as well as to help students enjoy learning English. I would like to know more about how other teachers think when they integrate a technology tool in their teaching reality. Especially when I look at some teachers who have successfully used technology in their teaching, how did they do that…- therefore my research aims to understand how our fellow teachers think about technology or imagine themselves teaching with technology. The findings may benefit other teachers who want to integrate technology in their classroom.

Teacher cognition and technology
Before I started doing the research – I looked for the key concepts of teacher cognition – As you have already known about the definition, teacher cognition is what teacher know believe and think about their work. It is very important to know that teacher cognition is highly shape by language learning and teaching experiences and contexts and it cannot be assessed directly. Yes not everyone feel comfortable to talk about what they believe in their teaching and learning. Then I look into the relationship between teacher personal views and technology integration and found that what teachers think do effect the technology use. Any innovation that takes place in classroom has to agree with teachers’ thinking or it will be facing difficulties or even failure.

Methodology
As I have mentioned that teacher cognition may not be accessed directly. I try to find the best way to get the teacher talk about their thinking. I used mixed-methodology. Mixed methods combined many kinds of instruments and each instrument support each other in elicit questions and areas of inquiry during the process of data collection. I used a survey questionnaire to get the overall picture of how tertiary teachers think about technology in language classroom. Then use the preliminary data to form questions for semi-structure interviews and unstructured interviews to get more detailed and contextualized data. Throughout the investigation process, I keep my research journal and observed the technology uses of teachers to gain a better understanding and make connection between their thinking, their working environment, and their actual teaching behaviours.

Findings: Quantitative
Now I’m gonna talk about a part of the findings from the questionnaire, I would like to present interesting findings. I asked a question about technology uses that were relevant to their teaching principles. The majority of participants perceived technology as a tool for individual language practice, providing access to learning resources and references: enhance other skill practices. Using word processors was also something that teachers feel relevant to their teaching.

Only a minority of participants perceived technology as useful for seeking feedback, practicing writing on the web, or interacting with other language learners.
The most relevant uses of technology that participants selected here may appear to be very simple / low-level use of technology. Teachers preferred the ready made materials such as CD Roms or EFL websites which they recommend students to do exercises. Teachers reported that they didn’t see technology in providing students opportunities to interact with people and write on webpages for real-life audience. They didn’t think that these kind of technology uses fit into their teaching practices.

The reasons for this are varied and complex. Earlier studies may explain that these group of teacher may hold traditional views of teaching that they life to give controlled practices or teacher-centred instructions.. However, I was not convinced with this self-report data because I know that teachers’ beliefs and perceptions towards technology are highly influenced by their teaching contexts and conditions as well. There should be a better explanation for this phenomenon. Therefore a more qualitative method such as interviews were used to find out about underlying reasons of teacher thinking.

Scenario Interview
Since I always bear in mind that teachers’ thinking is complex and can not be assessed by only self-report questionnaire. Therefore, I created different scenarios containing typical web-based activities inspired by the notions of network-based language teaching by Kern and Warschauer. Then I asked teachers to criticize the use of technology according to their perceptions about the conditions of teaching English in Thai universities. I asked participants to think about each scenario and identify how much it would fit into their teaching and context.
This strategy was used to encourage teachers to feel comfortable to talk about technology in classroom without criticizing their own practice or their ability to use the technology.

Pipat’s
This is an example of web-based classroom scenario I used to in semi-structured interview. Participants were asked to criticize about this kind of technology use especially the teacher role. As you can see this kind of technology use is very teacher-centred. Everything was set by the teacher and students just do what they were told. But they use the available facilities which are effortless to operate. Suppose you were my participant- what do you think about this kind of activity- it makes to think and project your perspectives on the others’ teaching.

Let’s see how some participants think about this technology use. They think that this is suitable for their students and fit their teaching practice. It’s easy to use and provide more channels of communication between teachers and students. It’s close to real-life teaching. However, if something can be done here, it’s a good idea to use the activity in a way that it promotes more students’ participation in making their own choices in language learning. We can see the reason behind their technology choices when we use a less direct kind of question.

Jintana’s
Another example of web-based classroom scenario. As you can see this scenario represents a highly learner-centred approach of using technology, participants expressed concerns about students’ English ability in contributing in a web forum. Students may need more background knowledge about what they were going to discuss. Maybe teachers need to take more action in choosing the topic. In addition they thought that this kind of instruction may not be suitable for beginner students but may be possible with a more advanced group of students. See how teacher expressed concerns about choosing a technology-based activity for the students.

Conclusion
Teachers are the centre of the instruction. Teachers make decisions on choosing technology, types of input, and learning enhancement. That’s why teachers who share the same facilities have different views on how to use technology and may pick up different tools for classroom teaching. They are selective when it comes to technology. For example, a teacher may think that she needs to give students more grammar exercises on websites because the majority of students need to practice the skills. While another teacher think that she would encourage students to practice writing on blogs because she knows that her students are ready to communicate with reader and would be more motivated to write with multimedia features.

Implication
Ask the teacher what are problems in their language classroom. Their needs should be addressed before giving them ICT training or facilities. If they know how technology can help them and their students in language learning- they would definitely adopt technology in their teaching- who doesn’t want to do the job better?
Previous studies may have given explanations that it’s because of lack of time, lack of skills, lack of supports, lack of facilities, lack of motivation, lack of financial support etc.
I would like to suggest another way to look into this situation by asking teachers what do they really think about technology especially in their classroom with real students – and what they really want to do with technology -- not just looking at what kind of technology they are using or what are problems they are facing. --Looking into teachers’ thinking and perspectives may give a better understanding to the process of ICT integration.

Thank you. All questions and suggestions are welcome

When I was inverviewed about my technology use in language teaching

I was so delighted when Karen, a PhD candicate from Griffith University, asked me if she could interviewed me about how I used technology in my language teaching.
But when she asked questions, it was so tangled in my brain that I found it very difficult to reflect on my beliefs. I need to search for words and expression that best represented my thoughts. Now I know how hard it is to talk about one's educational beliefs, values, and attitudes.
What is more is telling the truth, not the expected answers...wow it's hard to talk about what u believe isn't it?
Thank you Karen for sharing ideas and being such a good and understanding interviewer. You gave me such a good experience, being interviewed about my technology use. It helps with my data analysis as well. It's a kind of vicarious experiences.....yis it was.

How to write about findings

I submitted Chapter 4 of my findings and got feedbacks from my supervisors- Now I know that when writing about data - just intrepret what I have found keep the literature comparison minimum. Keep the research supports for the discussion part. Talk more about the data and how I understand it.

Can I finish my thesis by the end of this year?

I am now writing Chapter 4 and 5. They are all about quantitative and qualitative findings about teacher cognition in using computer technology in teaching EFL. I think I will finish these two chapter before the end of March. Then I move to Chapter 6 discussion and Chapter 7 conclusion which I would spend 2 months on them. I think in September I would be able to work on the most boring part, Chapter 2. Then finish them up with chapter 1. And take the first four months in 2010 for revision. I will get it done it promise to myself.

Halfway of the Battle

After data collection, this is just a halfway of the battle. I'm going into data analysis. Perhaps this is the climax of the battle. I'm gonna win or lose depending on this stage. Believe me the greatest battle is the fight with you inner self.

Drafting Chapter 3 Methodology

When I wrote my master thesis, writing chapter three was not difficult. I just looked at the others' thesis and did the same. The research design was nothing new, just follow the traditional way of how to assess students' writing. The interview was a follow up to clarify what student wrote in their essay. There was no transcription.

This time my chapter 3 is turning to be a very unique section. I couldn't find any description of research design and procedure that fit into my data collection. Yes, I have to write my own from the theoretical frameworks of the research. THere are two key frameworks: teacher cognition and sociocultural appraoches about language teaching. My supervisors told me to draw key notions from these two frameworks and than give rational why did I chose qualitative approaches as the major inquiry.

Working on Interview Data

Now I know how keeping a research journal means to me. There're lots of thing to think about each day and my memory is not as good as when I was younger. I'm going to tell myself what's I've been thinking today in the office.

Tomorrow I'm gonna have a meeting with supervisors. I'm gonna show them some part of my interview data. After I listened to each recording, 4 times each. I draw some themes out of their accounts.

Then I look at the themes and ask myself some questions:
- Do they cover the key meanings the interviewees trying to tell me?
- Have I classified those themes appropriately?
- Are there any overlapping, overgeneralizing, underpaid attention on any information?

So what I feel like to do now is going back to the recordings again and re-listen to all the interviews. YES IT's exhuasting! But I know I have to.

These days I'm not just trying to make the meaning out of the interviews but also think about these things in my thesis:
1. What topics should be included in my chapter 2
2. What should I write in Chapter 3 - telling how I collect and verify the data and the coding
3. How to make a connection between my qualitative data and my quantitative data?

Well those questions already make me feel like my head is getting inflated.
Maybe it's true that in my country we make fun about people who study a lot having 'bigger head'.

Well- Professor White told me that when we look at a PhD thesis, it should be like a rainbow.
The most beautiful part is the methodology and the results because they are your own work.
So pay attention to the methodology and the findings. Then if they are settled, the rest of the thesis would be written in accordance to the methodology and the findings. Isn't it much easier to think about?

Yes it's true. I can start with methodology and findings. It's the most exciting part, isn't it?